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Season 4, 2025

2025-12-22

In a year of huge seasons, season 4 did not relent. Kicking off with a big trip to Melbourne and Sydney and continuing to be pretty jam packed all the way up to the end is honestly just par for the course for 2025.

Goals from this season

> Make a new friend at MIGW / SXSW
Mission accomplished! Met a few nice people in the southern states from all over the country (and the world, really!) Writing this now is reminding me I should probably reach out to them and let them know it was nice to meed them hehe. I already did a whole write-up about MIGW & SXSW 2025, so give it a read if you're interested.

> Cancel on things (or at least be late)
Writing this goal down did give me license to put myself first a bit more and be in tune with my own needs. There was only one instance I can remember where I actually cancelled on something because I wasn't feeling it, but I was able to loosen up on punctuality pressure for both myself and others which I think is good.

> Dedicate a few hours for chilling each week
I've written this as a goal before, and I've never followed through (tbh, it's silly to have a goal that is "plan something" like, just make the plan now, buster). I think it's a reflex for feeling overwhelmed and out of control. I took some steps to prioritise sleep and some recharge time this season and I think I've reached an understanding of my energy levels (something I've struggled with all year). Next step for this is being able to anticipate if something is going to send me into an energy deficit. I'll be keeping tabs.

> Gear up for 2026
As everything's wound down, I honestly haven't thought much about 2026. There are a few projects carrying through to the new year, which is reassuring, but largely there isn't anything huge looming on the horizon. I guess this very post is acting as a part of this goal?

> Develop a music practise & composition routine
I did manage to sit at the piano a lot more than is usual this season. Counterintuitively, this wasn't due to effective goal setting or carefully laid out plans, but instead, a commitment to just being at the piano. Czerny has been a mainstay, and has helped my technique in a pretty short amount of time. I've also been grinding some Bach and Debussy to keep things challenging.
I'm not going to be performing and recitals any time soon, but this helps me feel more adept, and less floundering when I need my fingers to be ready to play something. I'm hoping I can focus my piano time a little more in the new year when I can be more intentioned with my time and schedule. Really getting deep into some jazz stuff will be the next road to go down I think.

In terms of overall recap, MIGW and SXSW really took the limelight this season, and as I said earlier, they got their own recap. As I had anticipated, October was pretty much a write off, as was December with mostly residency wind down stuff and the holidays in the last two weeks. November didn't really have anything of note going on, so that pretty much concludes the recap haha! As you can see below I did end up watching and playing a bunch of stuff in my trip recovery week and when I had the flu for a week (lame). Totally fine, just not very exiting to write about here lol.

Media Log

Movies

TV

Games

Music

Books

2025 year in review!

I don't want to bloat this entry out into something massive so here are some fun stats and facts from this year:

A truly standout year for me personally. Heaps of accomplishments and lots of stuff kicked off (which will ideally mean lots more cool stuff in the years to come).

Forecast: The whole of 2026

The year's end is a perfect time to look forward a bit further than just one season, so let's scope out 2026 as a whole. There are lots of things I would like to do in the new year, and I definitely won't be able to do them all at once. Here's some I can think of right now:

The trickiest part of most of these is that they are ongoing, long term goals that kind of need to be persistently worked on...and they all feel important! Okay let's shelve these goals for a sec and have a look at 2026 in terms of key dates:

Jan 30 : Global Game Jam
Feb 15 & Mar 5 : Games Grants deadlines
Mar 15: Project DP Milestone
Mar 30 - Apr 6 : Break time (End of Season 1)
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May 18 : My Bday :)
Jun 30 - Jul 5 : Break time (End of Season 2)
(Jul 3 : Project DP Milestone. tricky timing.)
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Jul ?? : Project OT Complete?
Aug 15 : Games Grants Deadlines (estimated)
Sep 21 - Oct 1 : Break Time (End of Season 3)
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Oct 2 - 11 : MIGW (estimated)
Dec ?? : Project MB Complete?
Dec 21 - Jan 3 : Break Time (End of Season 4)

Not too hectic at the moment, but things are bound to stack up as time rolls forward. I think deep in my heart I'm hoping things don't go too hectic and I can sit down and focus on my stuff, but that's freaking hard when there's always interesting things going on. As I said before, I think the working publicly thing will be important as there's less face to face stuff going on.

This year I appreciated keeping Games Week in mind throughout the year. It's kind of the big showcase for everything one has worked on throughout the year, and it's good to have it as a horizon line that isn't just the year's end. I'm going to keep that in mind again, even if I don't end up making my way down there.

ANYWAY let's take all of that on board and have a look at Season 1 for 2026!

Goals: Season 1, 2026

> Learn about plant keeping, and get some indoor plants 🪴
We've just finished our bing spring clean here, and we've got lots of little spots where plants would be perfect. In the past, plants have been off the brain radar and just been left to perish unceremoniously, but now I am ready and filled with green passion. I'll probably acrue them slowly, but i'm ready for the vibes to increase in here. If you've got any tips, I'm all ears so send the my way. There will probably be some casualties, but those plants will not be sacrificed in vain.

> Have the first local Game Audio meetup 🎧
Finding a venue is going to be annoying but would love to get a small group of peeps together for the first dedicated audio meet. There's already heaps of social stuff going on in the gamedev scene here, so finding a time that works might be a little tricky, but I'm confident we can get something rolling.

> Stream twice a week 📺
This is an aggressive goal, but I think just once a week is too infrequent and doesn't encourage regularity. I can usually comfortably fit in a Thursday night game stream, but a work stream during the week would be sick I reckon. Not sure which day yet, Tuesday is probably best for visibility, and it would mean I would be incentivised to put some focus time into making stuff - hell yeah.

It feels like there's a lot of other stuff I want to include here but would just make things too jumbled. I'm obvs going to be trying to enhance my game audio capabilities, but I think that's such an overarching focus that it can kind of go without being written here, which is nice tbh. Along with all this I feel there's going to be a lot of self check ins this season as well. Jumping headfirst into a whole new routine is going to need some adjusting to get right, so I'll report back with how the shift went and what I'm looking to change in season 2.

Alrighty, feels like it's about time to wrap this up. 2025 was a banana bonky year, and I hope to propel that energy through to 2026. Thanks for reading, and I wish you all the best for the year ahead!
As always, live your dream,
Oscar

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